Mark said:
My computer keeps rebooting at strange times. It started
doing it every time i tried opening the Windows Fax
Viewer. Now it's doing it when i try to resize my
Browser font and a moment ago, it rebooted for no damn
reason. Any ideas?
Random rebooting can be caused by failing hardware. The first thing to
do is stop the automatic rebooting on failure so you can get an error
message:
Stop the Automatic Restart - System>Advanced>Startup and
Recovery>Settings and under System Failure uncheck "Automatically
Restart".
Then the next time it reboots, write down the Stop Error and post it for
more help. If you don't get a blue screen with a Stop Error, then your
computer may be overheating. Here are generic troubleshooting steps for
hardware:
1) open the computer and run it open, cleaning out all dust bunnies and
observing all fans (overheating will cause system freezing); 2) test
the RAM - I like Memtest86 from
www.memtest86.com - let the test run
for an extended (like overnight) period of time - unless errors are
seen immediately; 3) test the hard drive with a diagnostic utility from
the mftr.; 4) the power supply may be going bad or be inadequate for
the devices you have in the system; 5) test the motherboard with
something like TuffTest from
www.tufftest.com. Testing hardware
failures often involves swapping out suspected parts with known-good
parts. If you can't do the testing yourself and/or are uncomfortable
opening your computer, take the machine to a good local computer repair
shop (not a CompUSA or Best Buy type of store).
HTH,
Malke
